Woman sues dog farm over abuse claim

A DISTRESSED dog owner from Nicosia is filing suit against a dog- training farm, which she claims is responsible for her Rottweiler’s death.

Inga Ioannou told the Cyprus Mail she had kept her dog Rex for about a month at the dog farm, which she regularly visited to see how he was faring. “Everything was fine for about a month. But after bringing the dog back home, I realised that he was not the same. Before this, he had been a very lively dog. Now he was depressed all the time, stopped eating, and all he did was just sit there.”

Ioannou said that at first she did not give this much thought, as her 14-month-old Rottweiler’s mood appeared to be improving. “But then he completely stopped eating, or doing anything. And then I noticed that there was blood in his urine.”

Ioannou took Rex to a veterinarian, who said the animal had been physically abused, “kicked around,” as Ioannou put it. The vet told Ioannou that the dog’s liver and stomach had been severely damaged and were bleeding internally, and that this had been caused by physical abuse and poisoning.

Over the next couple of days, Rex’s condition deteriorated. “One morning he seemed to be fine, but then in the afternoon he fell into a coma.” Ioannou took the dog to a veterinarian, who administered intravenous medication, but the dog died soon after.

Distraught, Ioannou contacted the dog farm to complain. They denied her dog had been mistreated in any way, but did say it had been placed in the care of a newly-hired employee, who she was led to understand was “obviously an unqualified trainer”.

“This is not about money,” Ioannou said of her decision to take the dog farm to court. “I mean, dogs cannot just be kicked around because they are dogs. When you place your pet in the care of someone else, then you expect that person to do just that — care about the pet. I just want to make sure these people do not harm other dogs.”

The dog farm refuses to comment on the case.